Business in Russian: immigrants organized super-fast food delivery in New York

Russian entrepreneurs Pavel Danilov and Anton Gladkoborodov launched a grocery delivery service in New York in 2020. Service provided by the company Fridge no more, takes 15 minutes. The publication told about such a service. Forbes.

Services existing in the city bring food within a few hours or the next day, while the Russians offered delivery in 15 minutes.

The partners opened the first two cloud stores (retail facilities without a service hall) in Brooklyn - in Williamsburg and in Park Slope. There is now another store in the area. By the end of 2021, they plan to open 35 more cloud stores across New York.

Gladkoborodov and Danilov met in 2016 in the USA. Then Danilov studied at a business school at Stanford, and Gladkoborodov and his brother Igor participated in the summer program of the American startup accelerator Y Combinator with the Coub loop video service. All three were looking for housing and found a common home in Menlo Park, California. Pavel and Anton lived together for six months, became friends and decided to launch a joint project in the future.

The opportunity came three years later. After leaving the United States for Russia, Danilov first built Agrosputnik, a software development company for farmers, for a year. The startup analyzed data from satellites and pointed out problem areas in the fields. Danilov confessedthat the team paused the project when they realized that they overestimated the market's readiness for such a product - farmers were simply concerned with other problems.

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Then Danilov invested in the service for the delivery of groceries with prescriptions at home Elementaree and prepared several more deals, but came to the conclusion that the market was not yet ready for a fund in the agricultural sector.

At the end of 2019, Danilov left the fund. By that time, Anton Gladkoborodov had left the Coub project. Both were looking for new ideas in parallel. In January 2020, friends met in New York to discuss options. They considered the most promising idea to launch a grocery delivery service in 15 minutes. The proposal was new to Americans. Market players, for example Amazon, brought orders within a few hours or the next day.

The partners associate the absence of competitors with various reasons - from the nuances of legislation, because of which it is difficult and expensive to hire people to work, to "the blindness of local people who simply do not notice the opportunity."

“America is a country in itself, it does not see what is happening in the world. Here, paper checks are still in use, banks are lagging behind Tinkoff and Alfa-Bank, there is no normal car sharing, ”says Gladkoborodov.

Explore and taste everything personally

Like-minded people decided to start in New York. It is one of the few densely populated cities in the United States where shops are common near home. Residents of "one-story America", as a rule, shop in giant supermarkets, stocking refrigerators for weeks in advance. In addition, New York is filled with people of different nationalities and classes, making the city ideal for testing business models and marketing approaches.

In March 2020, Danilov came to New York to prepare for implementation. Then he returned to Russia and got a job as a courier at Samokat and Yandex. Shop "to gain experience.

In May, the partners raised $ 1,5 million from the venture capital fund AltaIR Capital, the business angel community AltaClub, the Bratte fund of Evgeny Nevgen and Sergey Gonchar, as well as the model of Natalia Vodianova and other private investors. At the same time, the first employee appeared in the team - Alexey Udovichenko, responsible for finding suppliers and forming the range.

Selecting the assortment, the team decided to limit the offer: for example, instead of ten types of milk, to sell two - more expensive and cheaper. This made it easier for consumers to choose and made the service more attractive.

“The traditional US supermarket is about the size of a baseball field — the shelves are full of countless brands in every niche. A person is seized with a stupor - which of the twenty brands of butter should be chosen, ”Udovichenko comments.

In order to figure out the suppliers, Alexey was at first on duty at local stores.

“The names of suppliers are not written on the packages. One brand can be represented by 15 different companies. It is important to choose a supplier with a wide and versatile range, ”he explains. It was easier to agree on cooperation: "In America, everyone is determined to do business and increase the client base."

Danilov and Gladkoborodov were looking for premises for cloud stores at that time.

The partners expected to open in the summer of 2020, but it took several months to find premises and paperwork. Therefore, the service only started working in October with two points in Brooklyn.

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Fridge No More has been serving orders since October 2020. According to the founders, it helped them to attract the first users publication in Time Out, published the day after the startup was launched. For the first month, partners “literally brought new users by the hand”, Danilov recalls: “I personally stood at the cloud store and caught people passing by.” They also turned to "guerrilla" marketing: having given the order to the client, the courier hung service leaflets on the door handles throughout the house. Residents also helped promote Fridge No More: one, according to entrepreneurs, spoke about the company in a house chat.

Courier marketing

By the time of the start, in addition to Gladkoborodov Danilov and Udovichenko, the team included five developers from Russia and four more managers. The marketers and accountants worked freelance. Two weeks before the launch, Danilov found 30 couriers. He personally posted ads and interviewed candidates. Among the couriers of Fridge No More, a photographer from Europe who cannot yet find work in his specialty in New York, a student at a local film school, as well as catering specialists who lost their jobs during the pandemic.

“There are also people with difficult lives, for example refugees,” says Gladkoborodov. - And there is a person who previously worked at Goldman Sachs, then made his own startup. It became interesting for him to work with us. "

Couriers move around the city on electric scooters: the company bought some of the devices, and leased some of them. Partners find that employed couriers are cheaper than independent contractors. In their free time, couriers collect orders and perform other tasks at points. Plus, they feel connected to the business and perform better.

“We have a courier who even started an independent Account Fridge No More on Instagram, where he tells how great it is for him to ride and deliver groceries, ”Gladkoborodov suggests.

In addition, according to American law, couriers employed in the state are allowed to wear branded uniforms and backpacks, as well as ride branded electric scooters (as opposed to independent contractors).

“Whereas our courier is our marketing,” says Gladkoborodov.

In six months, the startup staff expanded to 50 people. New departments have emerged - a team that launches outlets in New York, and a group of data analysts. The latter are developing technology to help shape the assortment at new locations based on customer preferences.

“The districts of New York, like the rest of America, are very different from each other in terms of population,” says Danilov. - In a neighboring area, not just another social, but also a cultural community, for example, Hasidim, can live. And we want the assortment at the points not to be repeated, but to vary depending on the preferences of the residents of a particular area. "

Now the Fridge No More team selects products manually: before entering a new area, employees study the range of local grocery outlets. Requests from users are also taken into account.

The startup works with dozens of suppliers and focuses on organic produce from local farmers in New York and Pennsylvania. But there are also global popular brands among partners, such as Coca-Cola and Oreo.

Plans for the future

In May 2021, the company opened a new outlet in Lower Brooklyn. Five more will appear before the end of the month, entrepreneurs promise. In total, they plan to launch about 2021 cloud stores in 40.

Pavel Danilov, co-founder of Fridge No More, has big plans and is confident that the American market is more promising than the Russian one.

“The United States has more million-plus cities than Russia, so we will have a place to turn,” he is sure. "First we will conquer the cities, and then we will go to the suburbs."